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Eugenics Wars
The Eugenics Wars were a series of conflicts that took place on Earth from 1993 to 1996 with a total death toll of 30 million, although some historians think it was closer to 35 million. Records of the era are fragmentary and contradictory and pose a difficulty for modern historians. In the 23rd century the Eugenics Wars were considered synonymous with World War III, but by the 24th century that designation had been reapplied to the 21st century's nuclear conflict. (TOS: "Space Seed", Star Trek: First Contact) The war's roots lie in the attempt of a group of human scientists' amibitious attempt to improve the race through selective breeding and genetic engineering. They created a race of "supermen" popularly known as the Augments, who were stronger, faster, and more intelligent than normal humans. (TOS: "Space Seed", ENT: "Borderland") The wars began in 1993 when the Augments seized control in 40 Earth nations. The most famous (and supposed "best of the tyrants") was Khan Noonien Singh, who rose to power in 1992 and, by 1996, ruled a quarter of the planet from Asia to the Middle East. Although there were no massacres under Khan's rule, the "supermen" usually treated their subjects as slaves. (TOS: "Space Seed") When Khan was attacked, terrible wars ensued, both between the normal humans of the free world and the Augments and between rival "supermen." Entire populations were bombed out of existence, and Earth was on the verge of a new Dark Age. The United States of America were relatively untouched by the Wars, but American troops fought in theaters such as Northern Africa. One was Jonathan Archer's great-grandfather, who in one encounter contacted enemy forces in a successful effort to allow non-combatants time to get to safety. (TOS: "Space Seed", VGR: "Future's End", ENT: "Hatchery") In 1996, the Augments were defeated and freedom restored to the Earth; Khan was the last of the tyrants to fall. Thousands of Augment embryos were placed in cryogenic suspension, but over eighty of the tyrants (including Khan) went unaccounted for, a fact the governments of the time did not disclose to the public. In 2267 it was discovered that Khan and 83 of his followers had managed to flee the planet unattended aboard the early sleeper ship [[SS Botany Bay|SS Botany Bay]]. (TOS: "Space Seed", ENT:"The Augments") In the aftermath of the war, genetic engineering was banned on Earth, and the first cloned human, Doctor Starros Keniclius, was exiled from Earth. However, the ban on genetic engineering would be challenged by the geneticist Doctor Arik Soong in the 2130s, when he stole some of the Augment embryos from Cold Station 12, a secret Starfleet station, and raised them in the Trialas system. When the United Federation of Planets was created in 2161, this ban would be extended to all member worlds. (TAS: "The Infinite Vulcan", DS9: "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", ENT: "Borderland","The Augments") Background Information TOS: "Space Seed" and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan gave the date for the Wars as the 1990s, but DS9: "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" was thought to have possibly retconned that date with a reference to them having occured two centuries prior. This would place the Wars in the mid-to-late 22nd century, however, which was inconsistent with Star Trek: First Contact. However, the original date of the Wars ware reaffirmed when Phlox stated in ENT: "Borderland", that Arik Soong's Augments were pretty sophisticated for 20th century genetics. Also, in "Space Seed" Spock describes the Eugenics Wars as "your last so-called world war," a designation inconsistent with First Contact, which placed World War III in the 2050s. It seems that the Eugenics Wars and World War III switched between the two episodes. This is backed up by TOS: "Bread and Circuses", which stated that 37 million died in World War III-- consistent with Phlox's assertion that over 30 million died in the Eugenics Wars, but not Riker's that 600 million died in the nuclear conflict in the 2050s. Although TNG has never stated when WWIII occurred till the movies, the problem is further complicated with the TNG Episode "Up the Long Ladder". Data says that in the early 22nd century they were still recovering from World War III. Data's statement is vague enough that this comes down to a lack of understanding. Even TOS talks about Wars in the 21st century "The Savage Curtain". So it is unclear if there is something we do not understand, perhaps some historians by the 23rd century connect the two wars.